Some Activists Said

On October 1, 2009, some men in fatigues walked into the village of Gompad in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, and fired at the people. Nine people died. Among the dead was Kanni Kartam, roughly about 20-year-old, of the Dorla tribe, whose body was allegedly found to be in pieces, with her clothes lying around her. Her year-and-half old son Suresh was found wailing over his mother's dead body, with three of his fingers chopped. Kanni's younger sister and parents were also killed. Her husband had gone to the jungle when the attack took place, and that's how he was saved. While a fact-finding team visited this village -- the only way one can get to Gompad is by walking or taking a bicycle from the nearest town which is 40 kms away -- the chronology of events and the facts of the incident were misleading. A petition was filed in the Supreme Court of India with 13 petitioners, but contrary to the Court's order to have the petitioners (including Kanni's husband/Suresh's father) protected, there is no information of their whereabouts. This poetry is an ode to Kanni Kartam, the victim of the Indian government's Operation Green Hunt. 

Some activists said
my breasts were sliced
like ham
      slapped on a slice of bread.


Some activists said
my breasts were chopped
like potatoes
      to be tossed on a hot pan.


Some activists said
my clothes were strewn apart
      around my body, except for on my body
like strands of noodles lying scattered
      around the pan, except on the pan.


Some activists said
my chastity was infringed upon;
       that I was raped.
That the axe cut me leaving my muscles in shreds
after multiple male ego projections pierced through me.


Some activists said
I was the face of Operation Green Hunt
except that my body was decomposed.
But nobody remembers how I look.


Some activists said
Suresh wailed to see me wailing in pain.
That he was dropped on my dead chest.


Some activists said
His baby fingers were grounded
when he held my breast
     which nourished him.


Some activists said
They were at peace that I was dead
     what with my body dissected
        what with my womanhood dissected.


But all I ask is:
Will just one activist
trek to my abode amid Ram's Dandakaranya?


Will just one activist
stop asking questions and
find out what was done to me, my village, my family
on that October morning?


Will just one activist
stop asking
     stop negating
         stop dissenting
but instead start walking
     towards finding my bloodied grave?

[This poem was recited at the XIII International Conference of the Indian Association for Women's Studies (IAWS) held in Wardha, Maharashtra, from January 21-24, 2011]

God drives this Dantewada bus

(This article first appeared in The Crest Edition - The Times of India, on August 21, 2010) 

Ganesh Singh runs the only bus that traverses the dreaded Maoist route between Chintalnar and Dornapal in Dantewada. Bizarrely enough, this is the third time he has tried to make a living in a terror zone — in Assam during the Ulfa strife, in Punjab just after Op Blue Star, and now in Chhattisgarh

Around 7 am each day, the fragrance of incense sticks fills a white bus stationed in Chintalnar village in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. In the driver’s seat, Ganesh Singh, 60, softly chants a prayer and garlands a photograph of Hindu deities placed on a ledge below the windscreen.

"Each day, I just take God’s name and drive the bus out of Chintalnar. I never know if it will return in the evening," says Singh, the owner of the bus. For several years, he has been plying the only possible vehicle between Chintalnar and Dornapal town — a distance of 45 km. Even vehicles from the six CRPF camps which dot that stretch don’t dare hit the broken road. In Chintalnar, a savage death can come to anyone any moment.

The bus run by Singh and his three sons is the only mode of transport available to those going to Dornapal town. The distance isn’t much; it would perhaps take just an hour to traverse this even on a potholed Indian road. But this stretch takes four hours.

The road on which Singh makes a living is about five feet wide and has been dug up at several points, leaving huge boulders scattered around. Maoists often park fallen tree trunks on the stretch to obstruct passing vehicles. If a CRPF vehicle halts to remove the log, it gives the Maoists enough time to launch a full-scale attack. Worse, the road is layered with several hidden landmines that the Maoists can trigger at will. They have strategically positioned themselves in the deep jungles on either side of the road.

The bus leaves Chintalnar at 7 am and picks up passengers — mostly adivasis — along the way and reaches Dornapal by 11 am. It begins its journey back around 3 pm.

Interestingly, by some quirk of fate, this is the third time Singh has managed to land up in a troubled zone to earn a living. Originally from a village in Uttar Pradesh, he went to Assam as a young boy in search of a job in the tea gardens. What followed is a truly remarkable series of coincidences.

"A few years after I was in Assam, the Ulfa (United Liberation Front of Assam) launched its agitation against outsiders. There was no point going back home because repeated cycles of bad weather had made farming untenable for me. So I headed for Punjab. But then came Operation Blue Star. So I came to Chhattisgarh. I would buy vegetables from the adivasis living here and sell them in Dornapal. Now it seems to me that I’ll be thrown out of here too. But this time I guess the destination would be up there," Singh laughs, pointing to the sky as he sips mahua, the local alcoholic beverage.

The adivasis are not his only passengers. "Often, Maoists board our bus, dressed in fatigues. They introduce themselves in Hindi but don’t harm anyone. And we too don’t stop anyone from boarding the bus — why should we?" says Pavan, Singh's son.

The family has had to ferry other ‘passengers’ as well. On April 6, 2010, when 76 CRPF jawans were killed during a three-hour Maoist ambush, Singh was summoned to carry the bodies from the site, five km away from Chintalnar and the CRPF camp. The bodies were then taken away by choppers for identification and the last rites. There was no way any CRPF vehicle would venture out that day, especially after a bulletproof van on its way to the ambush site was blasted to bits by a landmine.

"We’d heard the gunshots around 6 am and I instantly knew that something was wrong," recalls Sajan, Singh’s second son. "A few hours later, we were asked by the CRPF to transport the bodies in our bus. While I was picking up one body I noticed a landmine next to my feet. I was very scared. The sight of all the bodies in our bus still haunts me."

A witness to the violence unleashed by both the Maoists as well as the CRPF, Singh is now tired of waiting for the day’s bad news. "Ever since Salwa Judum (the people’s militia) was launched five years ago by the state government, we have had no electricity here. The children haven't been to school since then either. The only school running here was occupied by the CRPF and it was then bombed by the Maoists. Moreover, only the elders in this village have voter ID cards; there is none for the youth. The elections are rigged. Where is democracy? We only have anger, and perhaps only the Maoists understand our anger," says Singh.

But his rage soon fades into the moonlight. In the morning, it metamorphoses into courage once again — the courage he needs to drive a white bus down a dangerous road.